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North Korean politician's demise worries China

Jane Perlez

Removed: Jang Song-thaek is dragged out of his chair during a meeting in Pyongyang.

Beijing: North Koreans had long known Jang Song-thaek as the number two figure in their country, the revered uncle and mentor of Kim Jong-un, the paramount leader. Then on Monday state-run television showed two green-uniformed guards clutching a glum-looking Mr Jang by the armpits and pulling him from a meeting of the ruling party after he was denounced for faction-building, womanising, gambling and other acts as dozens of former comrades watched.

The spectacle of Mr Jang's humiliating dismissal and arrest - his image was also purged from government publications and propaganda programs - was a highly unusual glimpse of a power struggle unfolding inside the nuclear-armed country. But the major impact may be outside, and nowhere is the downfall more unnerving than in China.

North Korea's longtime protector and economic lifeline, China has considered strategically close relations with North Korea a pillar of foreign policy and a bulwark against the US military presence in South Korea. Despite Chinese irritation with North Korea's nuclear tests and other bellicose behaviour, China had built a good relationship with Mr Jang as the trusted adult who would monitor Kim, who is less than half his age.

Any shift by China concerning North Korea has the potential to significantly alter the political equilibrium in Asia, where the divided Korean Peninsula has been a fact of life for more than 60 years. While there is no indication that the Chinese intend to change their view, it seemed clear that even Beijing's top leaders were surprised by Mr Jang's abrupt downfall on Sunday, and even more by the North Korean state television broadcast on Monday.

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"Jang was a very iconic figure in North Korea, particularly with economic reform and innovation," said Zhu Feng, professor of international relations at Peking University, and a specialist in North Korea. "He is the man China counted on to move the economy in North Korea. This is a very ominous signal."

Mr Jang's dismissal was a shock not only because he had long been considered a core member of the country's ruling elite and a regent and confidant of Kim, who only assumed power two years ago upon the death of his father, Kim Jong-il. The way that Mr Jang was dismissed also was considered extraordinary, as the North Korea government has almost always maintained secrecy over its inner workings, power struggles and skulduggery during the more than six decades of rule by the Kim family.

"Kim Jong-un was declaring at home and abroad that he is now the truly one and only leader in the North, that he will not tolerate a number two," said Yang Moo-jin, an analyst at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, South Korea.

Mr Jang had visited China on a number of occasions and had been considered the most important advocate of the Chinese style of economic overhaul that the government in Beijing has been urging North Korea to embrace.

At 67, Jang is of the same generation as China's leaders. Unlike the 30-year-old Kim - who has not been to China and who remains a mystery despite the lineage to his grandfather, North Korea's revolutionary founder, Kim Il-sung - Mr Jang was seen by Beijing as a steady hand and a trusted conduit into North Korea's top leadership. He was one of China's few high-level North Korean interlocutors.

That the video of Mr Jang's arrest on Sunday at a Politburo meeting by military officers was released to the North Korean public, replete with tearful underlings shown denouncing him, was particularly unsettling for China.

And among the crimes Mr Jang was said to have committed was selling resources cheaply, an accusation that appears to have been aimed directly at China, the biggest buyer of North Korea's iron ore and minerals.

Mr Jang's demotion raised the possibility of further instability in North Korea at a time when China is already confronting increased tensions with two of its other North Asian neighbours, Japan and South Korea.

An overriding fear of China's is the collapse of the government in North Korea, an ally dating to the Korean War, which could lead to the reunification of the Korean Peninsula under a government in South Korea allied with the United States.